Poduvāl

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This article is an excerpt from Castes and Tribes of Southern India By Edgar Thurston, C.I.E., Superintendent, Madras Government Museum; Correspondant Étranger, Société d’Anthropologie de Paris; Socio Corrispondante, Societa,Romana di Anthropologia. Assisted by K. Rangachari, M.A., of the Madras Government Museum. Government Press, Madras 1909.

Poduvāl

Defined by Mr. Wigram as one of the Ambalavāsi castes, the members of which are as a rule employed as temple watchmen. Writing concerning the Mūssads or Mūttatus, Mr. N. Subramani Aiyar states that they are known as Mūttatus or Mūssatus in Travancore and Cochin, and Potuvāls (or Poduvāls) or Akapotuvāls in North Malabar. Potuvāl means a common person, i.e., the representative of a committee, and a Mūttatu’s right to this name accrues from the fact that, in the absence of the Nambūtiri managers of a temple, he becomes their agent, and is invested with authority to exercise all their functions. The work of an Akapotuvāl always lies within the inner wall of the shrine, while that of the Purappotuvāl, or Potuvāl proper, lies outside. From Travancore, Poduvān or Potuvān is recorded as a synonym or sub-division of Mārāns, who are employed at funerals by various castes.

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of Malabar, that “Pura Pothuvāls are of two classes, Chenda Pothuvāls or drum Pothuvāls, and Māla Pothuvāls or garland Pothuvāls, the names of course referring to the nature of the service which they have to render in the temple. The Chenda Pothuvāls would appear to be closely connected with the Mārārs or Mārayārs, who are also drummers. Māla Pothuvāls follow marumakkattāyam (inheritance in the female line), their women having sambandham (alliance) with men of their own caste or with Brāhmans, while the men can have sambandham in their own caste, or with Nāyar women of any of the sub-divisions below Kiriyattil.

Their women are called Pothuvārassiar or Pothuvāttimar.” It is further recorded that, in some cases, for instance among Māla Pothuvāls and Mārārs in South Malabar, a fictitious consummation is an incident of the tāli-kettu ; the girl and manavālan (bridegroom) being made to lie on a bed together, and left there alone for a few moments. Amongst the Māla Pothuvals this is done twice, once on the first and once on the last day, and they apparently also spend the three nights of the ceremony in the same bed-chamber, but not alone, an Enangatti sleeping there as chaperone. In these two castes, as in most if not all others, the ceremony also entails the pollution of the girl and her bridegroom. Amongst the Mārārs, they are purified by a Nambūdiri after they leave their quasi-nuptial couch. Amongst the Māla Pothuvals, they are not allowed to bathe or to touch others during the wedding till the fourth day, when they are given māttu (change of cloths) by the Veluttedan.” Podala occurs as a Canarese form of Poduvāl.